


these ashes settle slow

by claudia_allison_stilinski



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 6a, F/M, Post-Rescue, everyone's still broken, post-reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:06:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8151694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claudia_allison_stilinski/pseuds/claudia_allison_stilinski
Summary: Tender post-reunion Stydia snuggling turns into tender, post-reunion Stydia sex.(Angst, there's also angst.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/231823) by Kate (stilinski-loves-lydia @ tumblr). 



> You must also listen to ["The Fire"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VoO9p-aEbk) by Former Vandal and look at [ this incredible art](http://stilinski-loves-lydia.tumblr.com/post/151012214161/stilinski-loves-lydia-the-fire-by-mudblood228) \- this is a three pronged attack devised by Kate and myself.
> 
> This was also written quickly, and is overwrought and over-italicized, but here we go.
> 
> I'm hollandroden on tumblr.

She doesn’t let go of him, after, needing the warmth of his skin, or the worn-in softness of his shirt against her fingers at all times. Scott, still wiping tears from his eyes, had hugged his best friend one last fierce time, stepping back, wanting to give the Sheriff and Stiles some time, some space. 

Lydia, however, cannot bear the idea of him leaving her sight. Instead, she climbs wearily into the backseat of the sheriff’s SUV, to no one’s apparent surprise, keeping her eyes locked on the blinking, disoriented boy in the passenger’s seat, terrified he’ll disappear again if she so much as glances away.

They step, hand in hand, through the threshold to Stiles’ room, now supernaturally returned to its usual state. Her chest tightens uncomfortably, recalling just days ago, when this very room was a dusty, cordoned-off shell of a space, not brimming with the debris of teenaged boy. Her breath hitches as she takes in the All Time Low poster on the wall, the muddy lacrosse cleats kicked into the corner, the hoodie thrown haphazardly over the computer chair - all the minutiae of Stiles, of Stiles being a part of this world. Of her world. 

A lump fills her throat and she blinks back the moisture prickling at the corners of her eyes, angry at a supernatural universe that had taken him from her, thankful to a God that she didn’t even believe in for bringing him back. Feeling guilty that they had ever forgotten him, at all.

They end up curled together on the bed, Lydia’s back pressed against Stiles’ chest, locked in the protective cage of his arms. Unwilling to sleep, unable to speak, just tired blinking bleary eyes and sad, soddened heavy hearts and the disbelief that this most recent hell was over. She feels like a surreal lightness, like a physical form comprised of ashes, ready to blow away, anchored to this place only by the pull of his arms.

It starts with his head bowed into her neck, with the wracking sobs that eventually escape him. She clutches his arms that are still wrapped around her, her heart clenching viciously, the anger at this world that keeps breaking them surging to the surface. She eventually wriggles from his grasp, turning to face him, her cold fingers stroking over cheeks hot with the tracks of his tears. 

“I missed you,” he says finally, voice rough from crying, plaintive with a simple truth.

She closes her eyes, briefly, fingertips stilling over the edge of his jaw. “I missed you so much,” she replies, voice cracking with emotion and the effort of keeping her own tears at bay. “Even when I couldn’t remember. I still missed you.”

The familiar softness and admiration in his eyes bolsters her, gives her wearied self the strength to continue. “The things I said, before,” she whispers. “It wasn’t just because of the circumstances. I should have said them a long time ago.”

Her hands are still framing his face, and he moves his own hands up, wrapping around her wrists, looking at her in that way that melts her down and builds her back up, like she’s an empire, instead of just a girl.

And then his lips are on hers, lighting her up and reassuring her that he’s _real_. And they’re sitting up and she’s tugging him close to pull his flannel down his arms and she’s tugging the grey tee over his head, revealing even more of him to her. She runs her fingers over the circular scar on his shoulder as he stares at her with desperate eyes. She presses her lips to the shiny skin carefully, wanting nothing more than to clear the shame from his face.

She flutters kisses across his collarbone, and up the side of his neck, where she can feel the race of his pulse, vital and alive and _here_. She makes her way across his jaw, being sure to acknowledge every mole with a brush of her lips. Before she makes it back to his mouth, his hands are sliding underneath her top, skimming over her ribcage, then lifting her top over her head, before connecting his mouth back to hers, an inferno of affection and grief and staggering emotion.

He eases them backwards onto the pillows, trailing heated kisses and gentle touches over the scars at her throat and the freckles at her shoulder and the tops of her breasts; probably feeling the thundering of her heart in the process. He hovers over her, jeans falling low on his hips, as he tugs off her high-waisted skirt, drinking her in with an open mouth, like he just can’t _believe_.

It’s his turn to be reverent, to absolve. He kisses the scars that Peter left just over her right hip impossibly sweetly, eyelashes fluttering ever so faintly over her goose bumped skin. His mouth travels across her stomach, nipping into the hollow next to her hipbone before resuming his caresses over the surgical scar on her other side. 

(Sometimes, she feels ruined, like a Frankenstein of a girl. His lips make her feel like a warrior; like every inch of her is _loved_.)

She has imagined their first time together time and time again, in a varying kaleidoscope of scenarios: soft and sweet, sunlight pouring through curtains, innocence alight; darker and messy, fueled by frustrations come to an inevitable head; in his bedroom, organized chaos that feels of home; in hers, all 800 thread count sheets and lingering Chloé perfume; in the backseat of the Jeep, unable to hold back, spontaneous and thrilling, like the teenagers they forget they actually are.

Not once had she imagined falling into each other quite like this, just hours after returning from the Underworld, both of them messy piles of broken pieces swept into the shape of people.

It’s not perfect, but then, they never were.

It’s slow and soft and sad; the movements of their bodies a salve for all of their suffering. They’re rebuilding themselves, sifting through the rubble, handing each other found bits and pieces. Slowly finding happiness again, surely finding home. Settling each other, settling into each other. Finding their way back, forging their way forward.

In the dim light from Stiles’ desk lamp, as he fits inside of her for the first time, it’s surreal and strange and the most natural expression of all the things they do for each other so instinctively - all the saving and protection and knowing each other innately from the inside out. They’re dusting each other off with every innocent touch and blazing look and brush of lips.

 _Every piece_ , she thinks. _Every piece belongs to you._

“I’m still scared,” she admits instead, after, words whispered against his sternum.

He nods against the top of her head, lips pressing into her hair. “Me too,” he replies, voice rough. “I’m always gonna be.”

But the way he says it, there’s _hope_ and there’s _fight_. And she thinks they’ll be okay, that they can figure it out. 

Together.


End file.
